Massive crowds were on hand for the 83rd 24 Hours of Le Mans, although we should note that the attendance for last month's Indianapolis 500 was even greater (~260,000 vs ~370,00 for Indy).

Getty Images | JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP

The 24 Hours of Le Mans holds a special place in our hearts. More than any other race, it's a crucible in which new technology is forged, technology that's directly relevant to the cars you or I drive on the road. And for 23 hours and 57 minutes, this year's race belonged to Toyota Gazoo Racing, which put on a fine show with its pair of TS050 hybrid race cars. But racing can be a cruel, cruel sport—something I know all too well—and this year was crueler than most.

The race got underway on Saturday during torrential rain, with the first 50 minutes or so conducted under a safety car as the ACO (the race organizers) waited for the track to dry sufficiently for things to get going properly. At the front of the field the battle for the overall win was one fought between Porsche and Toyota with their hybrid LMP1 prototypes. Both of Audi Sport Team Joest's R18 hybrids faltered early on, as did the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid, but the remaining three cars (the #5 and #6 Toyota TS050s and the #2 Porsche) stayed in close contention with multiple lead changes between them throughout the course of the race.

The #5 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson, and Kazuki Nakajima looked set for victory after a strong performance in the final quarter of the race. The Toyotas were able to run for 14 laps between fuel stops—one more than either the Audis or Porsches, and the #5 stretched a lead over the #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid (Neel Jani, Romain Dumas, and Marc Lieb) and its sister TS050 (Mike Conway, Stéphane Sarrazin, and Kamui Kobayashi) until it all went tragically wrong halfway around the penultimate lap. A third of the way down the Mulsanne Straight, with Nakajima at the wheel, the #5 Toyota started losing power. In short order, its 50-second lead over the Porsche evaporated, and the car came to a halt just past the finish line—with three minutes still on the clock.

Further Reading

Porsche, which dominated the race a year ago, was the beneficiary of Toyota's rotten luck, earning the German company its 18th overall win of this famous race, completing 384 laps in 24 hours. The second Toyota was classified second and Audi—which was in danger of having its worst result at Le Mans since it began competing there in 1999—finished 3rd (#8, Oliver Jarvis, Lucas Di Grassi, and Loic Duval) and 4th (#7, Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fässler, and Benoit Tréluyer). Ultimately, the #5 Toyota wasn't even classified, excluded from the results for completing its final lap in more than allowed six minutes.

How terrible that this shock result will overshadow what was a brilliant fight for the win, with frequent lead changes, very close racing, and remarkably little attrition. (As a personal aside, having experienced a very similar situation with my team in 2014, I can tell you it's just about the worst feeling in the world to know you've done more laps than the rest of the field with nothing to show for it at the end.) It's the second time in three years that Toyota looked set for a win before snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and our hearts go out to the team based in Cologne, Germany.

Victory in the Pro-Am LMP2 class went to the #36 Signatech Alpine A460 Nissan of Nicolas Lapierre, Stephane Richelmi, and Gustavo Menezes, ahead of Rene Rast, Will Stevens, and Roman Rusinov in their #26 G-Drive Oreca 05 Nissan and the Russian trio Vitaly Petrov, Viktor Shaitar, and Kirill Ladygin in their #37 SMP Racing BR01 Nissan.

Further down the field, Ford got the storybook result it had hoped for—kind of—winning the GTE-Pro class (and beating Ferrari) on the 50th anniversary of its first win at Le Mans. But the GTE-Pro race was not without controversy. Accusations of rampant sandbagging by Ford in earlier races of the year and the Le Mans test day grew ever louder when the race organizers gave the Blue Oval a series of weight breaks (Balance of Performance adjustments in Le Mans lingo) and the Ford GTs qualified several seconds faster than anyone else in the class.

Indeed, in an almost unprecedented move, the day before the green flag waved the Fords (and Ferrari 488 GTEs) got pegged back slightly with a few extra kilograms of ballast. But that last-minute BoP adjustment appeared meaningless as Ford and Ferrari had the GTE-Pro race to themselves; Corvette, Aston Martin, and Porsche had nothing to offer their mid-engined rivals, leading to plenty of complaints on from fans that the fix was in.

In the event, the Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA #68 Ford GT of Joey Hand, Durk Müller, and Sebastien Bourdais crossed the line 10.2 seconds ahead of the #82 Risi Competitzione Ferrari 488 GTE (driven by Giancarlo Fisichella, Tony Vilander, and Mateo Malucelli), the the only car able to keep Ford honest for most of the race. The second Ganassi Team USA Ford(#69, driven by Richard Westbrook, Scott Dixon, and Ryan Briscoe) was a further 4.6 seconds behind. But the bickering continued even after the race, and after the podium ceremony those top three finishers in GTE-Pro had their trophies taken back by the ACO.

The #68 Ford was subsequently hit with a 50-second time penalty for exceeding the maximum speed during a slow zone (where track speed is limited due to an incident ) and another 20-second penalty for faulty wheel sensors. This ought to have handed victory in class to Risi, but the #82 got its own 20-second penalty (and €5,000 fine) for ignoring instructions to pit during the final 20 minutes to fix a broken display panel on the car—despite similar problems affecting some of the faster prototype cars in the first few hours of the race when no action was taken. As things currently stand, the #69 Ford GT therefore wins the class, with second going to Risi's Ferrari and Ford taking 3rd and 4th (which went to the #66 Ford Chip Ganassi UK car of Olivier Pla, Stefan Mücke, and Billy Johnson).

[update: I suck at maths and with the various penalties applied, the result in GTE-Pro was still the #68, then the #82, then the #69.]

Further Reading

The GT-Am win (for GT cars with at least two amateur drivers) went to the US-based Scuderia Corsa team of Townsend Bell (fresh off a strong run at the Indy 500 before a crash in the pit lane), Bill Sweedler, and Jeff Segal in their Ferrari 458 Italia, ahead of AF Corsa's #83 Ferrari 458 (François Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard and Rui Aguas) and the #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR (Patrick Long, Khalid Al Qubaisi, and David Heinemeier Hansson). Given the acrimony over the GTE-Pro result, this will have come as welcome news to the many Ferrari fans out there.

Finally, on a much happier note than either the LMP1 or GTE-Pro results, everyone was delighted to see the #84 SRT41 team complete a total of 315 laps over 24 hours. This, you will remember, was the Garage 56 entry of Frédéric Sausset—a quadruple amputee—along with Jean Bernard Bouvet and Christophe Tinseau. Sausset drove well during the race and it's no understatement to say that the grit and determination of this entry made it a very firm crowd favorite.

Listing image by Audi

Promoted Comments

The 69 was 24 seconds behind the Ferrari, and after penalty it's still 4 seconds behind.The Ford was 60 ahead of the Ferrari, and got 50 seconds of penalties above the Ferrari (50+20 for the Ford, 20 for the Ferrari), meaning that the 1-2-3 order stays exactly the same.

There is an outstanding complaint lodged against Ford regarding its performance relative to the LMP2 cars.